A Canticle and Descant: A Lament for the Children

A young sexually abused girl tells her teacher, “I can't pray.” She asks, “How can I pray to a God who let such awful things happen to me?” What can she pray? How can the Church pray if this happens in the midst of the congregation? What must we pray? Scripture itself points the way. In the Psalms there are many laments – songs of the wounded heart. Think of Psalm 13:

How long, O, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, O, LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
My enemy will say, 'I have over come him [her].'
And my foe will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;
My heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD for he has been good to me.[NIV]

The child of God, wounded and alone, cries out to God for help. She cries out to God and challenges him to help. She complains bitterly that he has hidden his face. Why must she be alone in her sorrow? Why may her enemy continue to do such wicked things to her? Why, O LORD? And there seems to be no answer at all. There is only darkness and the threat of death. The abused person becomes self destructive; anorexic; bulimic; suicidal. Her abuser knows that if she dies his secret will die with her and so he rejoices at her downfall. If and when she becomes antisocial and psychotic, he is safe, for she then becomes an “untrustworthy liar.”

If a victim of abuse can pray with these words of Psalm 13 then she can, without feelings of guilt, literally challenge God to hear her. She may lay out her lament and her indescribable sorrow before her Maker. Though the victim may not feel the presence of God, she may confess her faith in God by challenging him in this way. Simply addressing God in prayer is already a confession of faith. And the Lord, in His mercy, has given us the words to use when He seems silent and far away; when He appears uncaring and when all hope of hope has fled.

But her Maker is also the Judge of all the earth. And there is another kind of lament Psalm: the imprecatory Psalm. The most [in]famous line of the imprecatory Psalms is found in Psalm 137:8-9.

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us – he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. [NIV]

The imprecatory or cursing Psalms have caused Christians all sorts of trouble. Some think that the god of the Old Testament is a god of anger and hatred and barbarity and that he stands in conflict with the god of the New Testament and with the teaching of Jesus Christ who says, “Turn the other cheek…” But the so called “imprecatory Psalms” are not curses at all. They are cries for justice. They are prayers to God that He might deal with those who oppress God's child[ren]. The Psalmists knew that they were not to take vengeance and justice in their own hands. They knew that their God is a God of justice and of vengeance. He will repay (Deuteronomy 32:35; Proverbs 20:22; Romans 12:19). So the Psalmists sought justice in the courts (Deuteronomy 25:1 ff). Declare him guilty! (Cf. Psalm 5:10). Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work; repay them for what their hands have done and bring back upon them what they deserve (Psalm 28:4). The Lord Jesus says that God will most certainly vindicate the elect (Luke 18:1-8). And in Revelation 6:9 f the souls of the persecuted, from under the altar, cry out to God with the words of Psalm 13, “How long, O Lord?”

The imprecations of Psalm 137 are the response of God's people to violence in the face of pathetic weakness. Psalm 109 is the cry of the abused even as she tries to show love and kindness to the abuser. To say, “What is done by the wicked ones is inexcusable,” is as inadequate as it is true! But yet, it needs to be said with passion. These wicked deeds of sexual abuse are done in the face of pathetic weakness and love, and stand condemned before God. They are inexcusable! Psalm 109 is an indictment against namby-pamby religion that says that God loves everyone and forgives everyone and so must I. Psalm 109 is the wail and lament for justice and right in world where there is none. It is the voice of rage and righteous wrath against those who sexually abuse God's little ones. I believe that the victims of abuse and their mothers may pray to God with the words of Psalm 109.